Memoirs of a Worker

Teeth

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My wife convinced me that before this chapter got posted I had to make a disclaimer. Here is the disclaimer. I am not a redneck, have never been a redneck, and don’t have any redneck plans in the foreseeable future! With that said, people could possibly think otherwise when reading these events from my life, if that be the case, refer to the disclaimer above.

Teeth are interesting members of the body. I like my teeth and the job they do, but teeth can also be infuriating at times, especially when a tooth decides to go rogue.

I happen to be an expert on my teeth so that is what I’ll mainly talk about. When I was fourteen years old, my teeth were what you would refer to as perfect! They lined up just right and looked good. People would say, “Wow, what a nice set of teeth, who was your orthodontist?” I had no orthodontist, mine just happened to grow in perfect. Then one day my wisdom teeth showed up and everything changed.

The wisdom teeth (I’m not exactly sure why they are called wisdom teeth since I don’t believe they ever awarded me with more knowledge) didn’t have quite enough room but they didn’t even seem to care. They just kept pushing and crowding their way along, more or less bullying the other teeth to move out of the way to make room for them.

By the time the wisdom teeth made their grand entrance, people no longer made comments about how nice and straight my teeth were. Instead they made comments like, “Did you know your front teeth overlap?” or, “Don’t you ever look in the mirror? Your teeth are crooked.”

I lived with it then and I still live with the same teeth. They seem to chew just fine so I haven’t been anxious to get braces to straighten them out. I figured if I can still clean the corn off of a cob, then my teeth are good enough.

One of the things I have developed over the years is a high tolerance for pain and I have been able to deal or live with most pain that comes my way. When I worked as a carpenter and nailed my hand or leg with the nail gun, (which happened more times than I wish to relate) I would return to work as soon as the nail was removed. Of course it hurts to get nailed, but sitting around thinking about your pain doesn’t get a house built.

However, when a tooth goes bad it can make your whole day miserable. (I think most people can relate to this) For instance, a couple of years ago when I was on leave from my job in North Dakota for a couple of days, one of my molars decided to go renegade. That tooth made my entire body ache. I paced, I cold packed, used pain killers, and I called the dentist.

The dentist worked me in the very next morning, which I appreciated. Of course the dentist did the usual x-ray thing, but couldn’t find anything wrong with the tooth other than a very small “possible” cavity. He gave me all the numbing shots but that tooth refused to go numb. Drilling on an unnumb tooth is not a comfortable experience. After four hours (no exaggeration) of working on my tooth, the dentist finally said, “I can’t do this any longer and I don’t think you can take it any longer.” He put a temporary filling in place and I headed back to work in North Dakota, an 11 hour drive.

A couple of days later the tooth in question reared its ugly head again. I paced, I moaned, I sucked on cloves but the pain continued to grow.

I remembered meeting a dentist at church who volunteered to help anyone with teeth problems. I found his number and called him at 10 o’clock that night. He said, “Meet me at my office at seven tomorrow morning and I’ll help you.”

At seven I was seated in the dentist chair in Williston, North Dakota. The dentist checked the tooth but couldn’t find anything wrong with it. In fact he said, “That’s a good looking tooth. What do you want me to do with it?”